Originally Posted by
Dave H
The Why of balancing: To prevent a higher voltage cell being overcharged and going into thermal runaway, toxic corrosive very smelly smoke and intense fire. Not so good.
Some suggest balancing is not needed, perhaps so if one is very diligent about checking cell voltages. But lipo cells change with cycling and age, the risk is not realizing balancing is needed until it is too late.
Some suggest balance charging is slower than a regular charge, not true at least with good balance chargers.
It is almost always a mistake to balance a discharged pack. At best causes more balancing time when charging. At worst abuses cells since they don't like being discharged too far, why take them lower.
Originally Posted by
Dave H
The safest way is to always balance while charging. Most all modern chargers balance while charging by default. Just hook up the main wires and the balance plug. Really no need to ever just balance a battery. It is a waste of time to balance before charging.
I remember when balancing became all the rage a few years ago, and having a battery manufacturer telling me it was overrated.
So last year I bought a pack for one of my cars I only used for practice - so it tended to get abused and misused, and run a lot compared to my race packs - and as an experiment I decided to never balance it and see what happened.
After a full year, and dozens and dozens of charges, I charged it up as I normally would at the track (no balance adapter) and then plugged it into my balance meter - and the cells read within 0.10 volts of each other.
